Food Insecurity Disparities and Mental Health Impacts Among Cancer Survivors During the COVID-19 Pandemic

  1. Marlene Camacho-Rivera
  2. Jessica Yasmine Islam
  3. Diane R. Rodriguez
  4. Denise C. Vidot
  5. Zinzi Bailey

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Abstract

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  1. Version published to 10.1089/heq.2021.0120
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.02.06.22270283: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    RandomizationDuring the initial recruitment phase of the AmeriSpeak panel, randomly selected US households were sampled using area probability and address-based sampling, with a known, nonzero probability of selection from the NORC National Sample Frame.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Participants who had reported receiving or trying to apply for food pantry assistance or SNAP were considered food insecure.
    SNAP
    suggested: (SNAP, RRID:SCR_007936)
    All statistical analyses were conducted using Stata IC 15 (StataCorp LLC, College Station, TX).
    StataCorp
    suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    There are several limitations in this study. Cancer survivors were defined as anyone with a current or past history of cancer and did not differentiate those who currently are undergoing cancer treatment and those who may have a more remote history of cancer. Additionally, we did not differentiate between different subtypes of cancer, which may confer different risks of financial insecurity. All of the data including demographics, cancer survivorship status, measures of food insecurity, and mental health symptoms were self-reported. Cancer survivors face a high level of food insecurity compared to the general population, due to job loss and the financial impact of cancer care. Food insecurity is also associated with worse quality of life and increased risk of adverse health outcomes; therefore, it is an important factor in public health. This study demonstrated that cancer survivors with food insecurity had drastically higher prevalence of mental health symptoms than those who did not face food insecurity. The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected populations that were already vulnerable to food insecurity, compounding a problem that already existed in the United States. There has been a drastic increase in unemployment in the US as well as the population of households facing economic hardship. In patients newly diagnosed with cancer, screening for financial and food security could be an important part of their cancer care. In other patients, healthcare providers can ...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2022.02.06.22270283 on medRxiv